Presidential Candidate Viability & Partisan Online ... - Omnifoo.info

Huntsma Santoru Bachman
Gingric
Johnson n
m n Perry Paul h Romney Cain Total
319 49300 988 277000 31700 133000 154000 242000 31200 919507
Obama Nader Barr Palin
C.
Christie
Paul
Ryan
J.
Bieber
K.Kard
106000 1180 353 55800 915 9170 188000 25800
Fig. 1: Number of articles on the site www.foxnews.com mentioning a particular person in the year up to November 2011. The top
row lists 2012 Republican primary candidates, while the bottom lists others of interest to make comparisons and keep the numbers in
perspective. Note that the “Total” at the end of the first row is the sum of the articles on primary candidates only, used to approximate
the total number of articles about the 2012 Republican primary candidates within a particular website. Undoubtedly there is some
overlap within this Total, with multiple candidates often mentioned within the same article counting as more than one in the Total.
Again, the detailed search protocol may be found in APPENDIX B.
Each person’s number of articles was divided by the Total (919,507) to give the percentage of articles
mentioning a particular person as a portion of all articles mentioning any 2012 Republican Primary candidate
in this website. Again, for Fox News, this division yielded the following proportions:
Johnson% Hunts%
Santorum
% Bach% Perry% Paul% Romney% Gingrich% Cain%
0.03% 5.36% 0.11% 30.12% 3.45% 14.46% 26.32% 16.75% 3.39%
Obama% Nader% Barr% Palin% Christie% Ryan% Entertainment%
9.70% 0.11% 0.03% 6.07% 0.10% 1% 19.56%
Fig. 2: Articles on www.foxnews.com mentioning a particular person, as a percentage of the Total number of articles mentioning any
2012 Republican Primary candidate. Note that percentages were calculated slightly differently for Nader and Barr, for the two
entertainment figures whose numbers were combined as the “Entertainment %”.
This calculation was repeated in Excel for each site in the survey. Space constraints prevent much discussion of
how this particular source differed from the mean or from particular sites, but it should be noted that Fox’s
coverage was surprisingly atypical of conservative sites overall. 24
The New York Times, in an article on the
increase in candidate television appearances accompanied by a reducing in-person campaign stops, notes that
Herman Cain actually led all candidates in appearances on Fox News, followed by Newt Gingrich, though
Santorum’s win in Iowa leads one to question whether a talking head can replace a handshake. 25
24 Compared to the mean for conservative sites, it was very high on Bachmann, Huntsman, and Romney, short on Santorum, Perry, Paul,
and Cain, while also covering Palin, Christie, Ryan, and Obama all considerably less. Relating these data directly to the central
contention of this paper, it would be assumed that, among Fox News consumers nationwide (assuming they are consuming factual
information) Michele Bachmann was probably a much better known candidate than Rick Santorum for most of the year leading up to
Iowa, despite each having similar platforms and a later reversal of familiarity and perceived viability as Santorum surged from behind.
Also, as a broadcast news network, Fox had nearly five times more coverage of the two entertainers than any of its fellow U.S.
networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC.
25 See Zeleny.
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